Yes, it's possible to over-ice

the result:

This all happened by my being too overzealous about icing my crackly, weak right knee. My knees are a constant bother during my workouts, but they usually don't hurt until later, when I try to go up and down the stairs at home, or get up off the floor, or whatever you have. I have taken to icing my knee using an icepack and an ace bandage to secure it. These are the icepacks I've been using:

Usually, when I've been icing my knee, I'll secure one of these on my knee, and then sit and work, or watch tv, or whatever, until its completely thawed out, and then I'll replace it with a fresh ice pack. Sometimes will even go to bed with one on my leg. Never had any problems before.

So last night, I had an ice pack on my knee, but when I was getting ready to go to bed, I thought I would put on a fresh-from-the-freezer pack. The one I had on my knee wasn't exactly cold, so I thought it couldn't hurt to get it really cold before going to bed. So I replaced the 1st ice pack with the 2nd, and went to bed. I remember thinking, "gee whiz, this is cold," and in my half-asleep state when I finally unwound the ace bandage and freed my frozen knee, feeling relief to be free from the icepack, but I didn't think anything of it.

Then this morning, as soon as I tried to stand up out of my bed, I knew something was up, because I felt like I had intense sunburn on my leg, not to mention my knee wouldn't straighten out all the way. My first thought was that I might have had an allergic reaction to something in the ice packs (latex?), but it turns out, I had given myself frostburn with my double ice pack situation last night.

I think the difference between last night and my normal icing procedure was that I didn't let the first icepack (and the skin of my knee) completely thaw before going into the second icepack. And I gave myself a nasty burn. Great.

Peggy knew it by the signs as soon as she saw it. Apparently a couple years ago she gave herself a combination icy-hot + ice pack burn, and she still has the scars to prove it (please no scars, that's all my pasty legs need, wtf!). She was very disappointed in my general lack of knowledge about proper icing procedure, but I swear, it only makes sense that if a little bit of ice is good for an injury, a lot should be better, right??

No more icing for me for a while. In the meantime, we've pulled the wedge from my mom's knee surgery up from the basement, and I'm sleeping with my leg propped up on it from now on. Looks comfy, right?

Anyway, be warned. Unless you want to look like you have leprosy of the knee, DO NOT over-ice your limbs. Frostbites a b, yo.